Gabrielle, Susan

Someone to Watch Over Me

by Susan Gabrielle

(October, 2012)

The tom turkey was perched on Ellen Kramer’s dresser when she awoke, pecking at his reflection in the mirror. When she raised her head off the pillow, it let out a short cluck, a sound like a fat raindrop in a tub of water.

Ellen let out a gasp then caught sight of the window. She had left it wide open all night even though it was early November, since the weather had been warmer than normal. She had learned to like the fresh air of the mountains, as John had always slept with the window open. The screen, though, had slipped off, and she hadn’t gotten around to replacing it.

She’d heard the wild turkeys this year were more tame than ever, mostly because the neighbors had been feeding them. Some claimed that the birds would eat right out of your hand, but she doubted that. Ellen could hear them roosting up in the trees in the quickening twilight each evening, the put, put, put of the females–the answering of the males.

This bird, though, took the cake, coming right into the house. Ellen sat up now on both elbows. “Hey, you! Get off my dresser. You don’t belong in here. Don’t you have a harem of hens you’re supposed to be watching over?” She waved a thin hand at him -- Ellen didn’t want to get too close. He might have one of those bird diseases or rabies. Could turkeys have rabies? She wasn’t sure.

The tom, though, seemed oblivious to her words. He walked back and forth across the dresser a few times, scraping his black-and-white striped wings along the top, then hopped down onto the carpet.

“No, no, no. This won’t do at all.” Ellen grabbed her robe, fumbled with the belt, and shoved her feet into John’s worn-out slippers, which she still kept beside the bed.

The tom was making his way down the hall. Maybe he was looking for a way out. Ellen slipped past him, back against the wall, and hurried to the front door. She propped open the screen door with a cracked flower pot, stalks of dead plants scratching at her wrists.

The turkey ignored the open door and walked toward the kitchen. He jumped up on the small table near the window and let out a gobble. His red wattle danced along.

“Oh, you want to go back out the window, don’t you?” Ellen scooted the table over with the edge of her slipper and one hand. He didn’t seem aggressive. But she was careful not to get near his beak, which could probably do some damage. She opened the window and pushed the screen out to the ground below. The tom stayed on the table.

Ellen grabbed a broom from the mudroom and tried to push him toward the window. “Go on outside now. There you go.” He shook his head, puffed out his body, and began pulling one long feather after another through his curved beak.

Well that’s not working, Ellen realized. Maybe he doesn’t like being watched. She decided to leave him for the moment, and set about preparing some tea and toast, as if it were the most normal thing in the world to have a turkey in your kitchen.

Leaning against the counter, she wondered if the neighbors were telling the truth. Ellen took some bread crusts and put them on the table in front of the turkey. He leaned down and picked up the crusts one by one. They were gone in an instant.

He is tame, thought Ellen. She tore off some long strips of bread and held them out to him, one at a time, with the very edges of her fingertips. The turkey reached toward her and gently took them, his beak never coming close to her fingers.

“What am I doing?” Ellen said aloud. “Do I want you sticking around, wandering the rooms? You belong outside. Shoo, now!”

She again waved her hands toward him and the window, but as Ellen caught the bird’s eye, she jumped back. Could it be? The tom had John’s eyes!

She shook her head. She must be imagining things; surely she was lonely since her husband had died, but she couldn’t lose her senses, too. If she did, they’d come for her and put her in one of those homes where the old people sat in front of the television all day staring out at nothing or sleeping. She wasn’t ready for that.

Still, as the tom stared at her, there was something about him, a certain resemblance to John. He was actually quite handsome. He didn’t really strut like turkeys do, but rather shuffled along, and he hadn’t left his droppings all over the house.

She remembered John in the last months before he became really ill, shuffling that same way around his workshop off the garage, arranging and rearranging the tools in just the right spots so she’d be able to find them when he was gone. Not that she would ever use them; they were in exactly the same places he’d left them. But she liked knowing they were there, and sometimes went out into the cold room to stare at the long-handled hammers and sets of matching screwdrivers.

John was always so neat, wearing just the right tie and sweater vest, never belching out loud, scraping the crumbs from the counter into his palm and washing them down the drain. While other wives complained that their husbands sat around drinking beer after beer while watching football on Sunday afternoons, John would be out raking leaves, or fixing a broken door hinge, or vacuuming the car. In 53 years of marriage, she’d never had to nag him about tracking in mud or taking out the trash.

When she looked at the tom again, he was standing on the window sill and flapped down to the ground. He walked back and forth in front of the window a few times, then ambled off into the woods behind the house.

Ellen had the urge to call people they knew and tell them that John was back. Everyone always said how much they missed him. But how could she explain that John was now in the form of a turkey? She didn’t know anything about reincarnation–didn’t know anyone that did–but coming back as a turkey didn’t sound like a step up in the world.

Ellen laughed to herself. Of course it wasn’t John. John as a turkey – how silly.

The next morning the tom was back, standing on the dresser. Ellen had left the window open again, just in case. This time, though, instead of staring at his mirrored reflection, the turkey was staring straight at her. She hadn’t even heard him come in.

“John?” Ellen said. The turkey let out a quiet gobble.

Ellen sat up, just like the previous day. “What are you doing here, John? Why did you come back?”

The turkey was quiet, but followed her as she went down the hall into the kitchen. He took his place on the table while she prepared breakfast for them.

He didn’t want to leave like the previous day, so Ellen spread papers around the house and left the windows and doors open for him even though it was cooler and cloudy outside. She bundled up in a sweater and sat near the fireplace reading a book. It had been many months since she had had such a pleasant day, and now she no longer dreaded the upcoming holidays. The tom took turns shuffling around and grooming his feathers. In the late afternoon, he let out a gobble, and flapped up to the table near the window. The evening animal sounds could be heard in the distance. He dipped his head as if embarrassed.

“I understand,” said Ellen. “Those are your friends now. You go. I’ll be fine. See you tomorrow.”

It was just before sunrise when Ellen awoke. She wondered where John was. He wasn’t on the dresser as he had been the last two days, and she’d left the window open for him. Maybe he was already in the kitchen, waiting. The room was icy; the temperatures had fallen to below freezing. Snowflakes swirled in. She shrugged a light jacket over her nightgown and grabbed a pair of old workboots from the closet.

Outside she could hear a commotion of voices. Through the weak sunlight from her front porch, she could make out a group of men not far away. They were laughing and talking excitedly. One of the men, a neighbor, held up something in his right hand, and she could see he was holding a long-barreled gun in his left.

“John!” Ellen yelled out.

All of the men turned her direction as she hurried down the snowy path to the field where they waited. “What are you doing out at this hour, Ellen?” said one of the men dressed in camouflage gear. “You need some warmer clothes. Let me help you inside.”

She ignored his comments. “You shot John!” She came up to the man holding three birds in his hand and grabbed the male. The other two birds, females, fell on the ground. They left two perfect turkey-shaped imprints on the snow.

Her neighbor tried to put an arm around her. “What are you talking about, Ellen? Are you feeling okay? John’s been gone nearly a year. You know that, right? Ellen?”

Ellen shook him off and sat down away from the men. She cradled John in her arms, stroking his black and white feathers, blood streaking the freshly fallen snow.